A final note on Target’s still surprising decision, confirmed by the retailer on Wednesday, to stop selling Amazon Kindle devices in its stores by the end of spring this year: Target will continue selling other e-reader devices, namely, Amazon’s direct competitor, the Barnes & Noble Nook line of devices. As a Target spokesperson put it in a statement to TPM: “We will continue to offer our guests a variety of ereaders and supporting accessories including the Nook and iPad.”
The decision is doubly odd, and perhaps meaningful, given that both the Nook Tablet device and Amazon’s Kindle Fire, low-cost, feature-light tablet computers, run heavily customized versions of Google’s Android software.
Further, on Monday, Barnes & Noble announced it had formed a new Nook subsdiary backed by Microsoft.
Meanwhile, Google istelf is reportedly preparing to release its own low-cost Android-based tablet branded under the Google name later this year. Target declined to comment on whether or not that tablet will be available in its stores, if and when it launches.